Jan Sapp – författare

This book is about tropical biology in action- how biologists grapple with the ecology and evolution of the great species diversity in tropical rainforests and coral reefs. Tropical rainforests are home to 50% of all the plant and animal species on earth, though they cover only about 2% of the planet. Coral reefs hold 25% of the world's marine diversity, though they represent only 0.1 % of the world's surface. The increase in species richness from the poles to the tropics has remained enigmatic to naturalists for more than 200 years. How have so many species evolved in the tropics? How can so many species coexist there? At a time when rainforests and coral reefs are shrinking, when the earth is facing what has been called the sixth mass extinction, understanding the evolutionary ecology of the tropics is everyone's business. Despite the fundamental importance of the tropics to all of life on earth, tropical biology has evolved relatively slowly and with difficulties - economic, political, and environmental. This book is also about tropical science in context, situated in the complex socio-political history, and the rich rainforests and coral reefs of Panama. There are no other books on the history of tropical ecology and evolution or on the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Thus situated in historical context, Jan Sapp's aim is to understand how naturalists have studied and conceptualized the great biological diversity and entangled ecology of tropics. This book has potential to be used in tropical biology classes, ecology courses, evolutionary ecology and it could also be useful in classes on the history of biology.

The scope and significance of cytoplasmic inheritance has been the subject of one of the longest controversies in the history of genetics. In the first major book on the history of this subject, Jan Sapp analyses the persistent attempts of investigators of non-Mendelian inheritance to establish their claims, in the face of strong resistance from nucleo-centric geneticists and classical neo-Darwinians. A new perspective on the history of genetics is offered, as he explores the oppositions which have shaped theoretical thinking about heredity and evolution throughout the century: materialism/vitalism, reductionism/holism, preformation/epigenesis, neo-Darwinism/neo-Lamarckism, gradualism/saltationism.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, massive herds of poisonous crown-of-thorns starfish suddenly began to infest coral reef communities around the world, leaving in their wake devastation comparable to a burnt-out rainforest. In What is Natural?, Jan Sapp both examines this ecological catastrophe and captures the intense debate among scientists about what caused the crisis, and how it should be handled.The crown-of-thorns story takes readers on tropical expeditions around the world, and into both marine laboratories and government committees, where scientists rigorously search for answers to the many profound questions surrounding this event. Were these fierce starfish outbreaks the kind of manmade disaster heralded by such environmentalists as Rachel Carson in Silent Spring? Indeed, discussions of the cause of the starfish plagues have involved virtually every environmental issue of our time -- over-fishing, pesticide use, atomic testing, rain forest depletion, and over-population -- but many marine biologists maintain that the epidemic is a natural feature of coral-reef life, an ecological "balance of nature" that should not to be tampered with until we know the scientific truth of the crisis. But should we search for the scientific truth before taking action? And what if an environmental emergency cannot wait for a rigorous scientific search for "the truth?"The starfish plagues are arguably one of most mysterious ecological phenomena of this century. Through the window of this singlular event, What is Natural lucidly illustrates the complexity of environmental issues while probing the most fundamental questions about the relationship between man and nature.

This book presents a history of the past two centuries of biology, suitable for use in courses, but of interest more broadly to evolutionary biologists, geneticists, and biomedical scientists, and general readers interested in the history of science. The book covers the early evolutionary biologists-Lamarck, Cuvier, Darwin, Wallace, etc., through Mayr and the neodarwinian synthesis, in much the same way as other histories of evolution have done, bringing in also the social implications, the struggles with our religious understanding, and the interweaving of genetics into evolutionary theory. What is novel about Sapp's account is a real integration of the cytological tradition, from Schwann, Boveri, and the other early cell biologists and embryologists, and the coverage of symbiosis, microbial evolutionary phylogenies, and the new understanding of complete microbial genomes. The book as a whole will serve as a good introduction to the rise of modern biology over the past two centuries.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, massive herds of poisonous crown-of-thorns starfish suddenly began to infest coral reef communities around the world, leaving in their wake devastation comparable to a burnt-out rainforest. In What is Natural?, Jan Sapp both examines this ecological catastrophe and captures the intense debate among scientists about what caused the crisis, and how it should be handled.The crown-of-thorns story takes readers on tropical expeditions around the world, and into both marine laboratories and government committees, where scientists rigorously search for answers to the many profound questions surrounding this event. Were these fierce starfish outbreaks the kind of manmade disaster heralded by such environmentalists as Rachel Carson in Silent Spring? Indeed, discussions of the cause of the starfish plagues have involved virtually every environmental issue of our timeover-fishing, pesticide use, atomic testing, rain forest depletion, and over-populationbut many marine biologists maintain that the epidemic is a natural feature of coral-reef life, an ecological "balance of nature" that should not to be tampered with until we know the scientific truth of the crisis. But should we search for the scientific truth before taking action? And what if an environmental emergency cannot wait for a rigorous scientific search for "the truth?"The starfish plagues are arguably one of most mysterious ecological phenomena of this century. Through the window of this singlular event, What is Natural lucidly illustrates the complexity of environmental issues while probing the most fundamental questions about the relationship between man and nature.

The extent of lateral gene transfer among diverse microbes has effectively broken down our concept of species when we seek to apply it to the microbial world. The explosive growth of whole genome sequences for a great number of microbes give us an unprecedented perspective on the entire process of cellular evolution known. The field is rife with controversies, which have been waged fiercely over the past 20 years and which now are all coming to a point of resolution. Sapp has brought together the best workers in this field to assess what we now know, and to try to reach an accommodation and consensus on the broad outline of how cellular life has evolved.

This is the story of a profound revolution in the way biologists explore life's history, understand its evolutionary processes, and reveal its diversity. It is about life's smallest entities, deepest diversity, and greatest cellular biomass: the microbiosphere. Jan Sapp introduces us to a new field of evolutionary biology and a new brand of molecular evolutionists who descend to the foundations of evolution on Earth to explore the origins of the genetic system and the primary life forms from which all others have emerged. In so doing, he examines-from Lamarck to the present-the means of pursuing the evolution of complexity, and of depicting the greatest differences among organisms. The New Foundations of Evolution takes us into a world that classical evolutionists could never have imagined: a deep phylogeny based on three domains of life and multiple kingdoms, and created by mechanisms very unlike those considered by Darwin and his followers. Evolution by leaps seems to occur regularly in the microbial world where molecular evolutionists have shown the inheritance of acquired genes and genomes are major modes of evolutionary innovation. Revisiting the history of microbiology for the first time from the perspective of evolutionary biology, Sapp shows why classical Darwinian conceptions centering on questions of the origin of species were forged without a microbial foundation, why classical microbiologists considered it impossible to know the course of evolution, and classical molecular biologists considered the evolution of the molecular genetic system to be beyond understanding. In telling this stirring story of scientific iconoclasm, this book elucidates how the new evolutionary biology arose, what methods and assumptions underpin it, and the fiery controversies that continue to shape biologists' understanding of the foundations of evolution today.

This is the story of a profound revolution in the way biologists explore life's history, understand its evolutionary processes, and reveal its diversity. It is about life's smallest entities, deepest diversity, and greatest cellular biomass: the microbiosphere. Jan Sapp introduces us to a new field of evolutionary biology and a new brand of molecular evolutionists who descend to the foundations of evolution on Earth to explore the origins of the genetic system and the primary life forms from which all others have emerged. In so doing, he examines-from Lamarck to the present-the means of pursuing the evolution of complexity, and of depicting the greatest differences among organisms. The New Foundations of Evolution takes us into a world that classical evolutionists could never have imagined: a deep phylogeny based on three domains of life and multiple kingdoms, and created by mechanisms very unlike those considered by Darwin and his followers. Evolution by leaps seems to occur regularly in the microbial world where molecular evolutionists have shown the inheritance of acquired genes and genomes are major modes of evolutionary innovation. Revisiting the history of microbiology for the first time from the perspective of evolutionary biology, Sapp shows why classical Darwinian conceptions centering on questions of the origin of species were forged without a microbial foundation, why classical microbiologists considered it impossible to know the course of evolution, and classical molecular biologists considered the evolution of the molecular genetic system to be beyond understanding. In telling this stirring story of scientific iconoclasm, this book elucidates how the new evolutionary biology arose, what methods and assumptions underpin it, and the fiery controversies that continue to shape biologists' understanding of the foundations of evolution today.

Where the Truth Lies is an absorbing account of a case of suspected fraud involving the tragic career of the molecular biologist Franz Moewus that illustrates all that can go wrong in scientific knowledge-making. Jan Sapp follows Moewus' meteoric flight among the greatest scientists of the twentieth century, to his denunciation as the perpetrator of one of the most ambitious cases of fraud in the history of science. The author reopens the case not to vindicate Moewus, but to show the lessons that the controversy reveals to the scientist. Professor Sapp demonstrates how what counts as evidence is negotiated in science, and reveals the difficulties scientists face in objectively testing the validity of their results. The author emphasizes the creative nature of science, the rhetorical nature of scientific reports, and the fictitious elements inherent in the construction and maintenance of scientific knowledge-making and knowledge-breaking claims.

Where the Truth Lies is an absorbing account of a case of suspected fraud involving the tragic career of the molecular biologist Franz Moewus that illustrates all that can go wrong in scientific knowledge-making. Jan Sapp follows Moewus' meteoric flight among the greatest scientists of the twentieth century, to his denunciation as the perpetrator of one of the most ambitious cases of fraud in the history of science. The author reopens the case not to vindicate Moewus, but to show the lessons that the controversy reveals to the scientist. Professor Sapp demonstrates how what counts as evidence is negotiated in science, and reveals the difficulties scientists face in objectively testing the validity of their results. The author emphasizes the creative nature of science, the rhetorical nature of scientific reports, and the fictitious elements inherent in the construction and maintenance of scientific knowledge-making and knowledge-breaking claims.

Genes, Germs and Medicine explores the development of modern biomedical science in the United States through the life of one of the Twentieth Century's most influential scientists.Joshua Lederberg was a scientific renaissance man. He and his collaborators founded the field of bacterial genetics, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 33 (the second youngest in history). He helped to lay the foundations for genetic engineering, made fundamental revisions to immunological and evolutionary theory, and developed medical genetics. He initiated the search for extraterrestrial microbial life, developed artificial intelligence, and was a visionary of the Digital Age. Lederberg coined some of the central terms of modern biology: plasmid, transduction, exobiology, euphenics and microbiome.A complex humanist who spoke out for social justice, Lederberg confronted racism, and denied a gene-centered view of humans. Pondering our social evolution outside of nature, he forewarned of the complex ethical issues arising from bioengineering. He sounded the alarm about coming pandemics at a time when few would listen, and warned of the peril of biowarfare and strove to prevent it. Lederberg was a man with a deep sense of social and intellectual responsibility, a trusted advisor to eight presidential administrations.